As the anointing ceremony ended, the giant screen filled with the words FordforLeader.com, the website where the former city councilor had earlier urged the congregation to sign up as Tory members.

“Go online … register, register your family and friends, because that’s the only way we can make a change in this province,” Ford told them. “And we will make sure — I can guarantee you we’ll make sure — the church has a voice. All the time.”

The event four weeks ago underlined Ford’s determined outreach to social conservatives — and success at doing so — despite a controversy in this case with echoes of the #MeToo movement.

Melnichuk was found not guilty late last year of sexually assaulting a mother and her daughter who were members of his congregation.

The Prayer Palace — a massive spaceship-like presence near one of Toronto’s busiest freeways — has faced controversy before, too.

The Toronto Star alleged a decade ago that little of the $3 million it raises yearly goes to charitable work, while Melnichuk and his twin pastor sons, Tom and Tim, live in lavish homes and drive luxury cars.

The church sued the Star for libel and Tom Melnichuk noted Wednesday that it remains a charity in good standing with the Canada Revenue Agency.

He dismissed the sexual assault charges as “bogus and flamboyant,” lambasting local media for failing to report on his father’s total acquittal after covering the 2016 trial. (The National Post did not report on the case.)

As for Ford, he has been critical of the Liberal government’s controversial sex-education curriculum, the younger pastor noted, and also seems willing to change Bill 89, a law passed last year that requires the child-welfare system to respect children’s gender identity.

God's hand will rest upon Mr. Ford

Some conservative groups have charged that the bill would let authorities seize children from homes where parents stymied their offspring’s chosen gender identities, though the government has said that would never happen.

“I believe that Doug Ford’s standpoint would be to amend if not revoke such a biased (law),” said Tom Melnichuk. “It’s a travesty and the government (is) reaching too far into the home.”

Ford, whose campaign team did not respond to a request for comment on the church’s endorsement, has also recently mused that it might make sense to require parental consent for minors to have abortions.

Those kind of stances have won him the support of Charles McVety, an evangelical leader who shared the stage with Ford at the Prayer Palace.

But his outreach to the community stands in stark contrast to former leader Patrick Brown, who insisted the party should avoid so-con issues if it wanted to beat the Liberals.

A poll released by the Angus Reid Institute Wednesday suggests Ford may not, in fact, have the winning formula for Ontario’s June 7 election. The PCs would keep their healthy advantage over the Liberals under leadership candidates Christine Elliott or Caroline Mulroney, but could slip significantly with Ford as leader, it concluded.

The front gates of Toronto’s Prayer Palace.Dave Abel/Postmedia/File

Paul Melnichuk, in his mid-80s, was tried in 2016 on charges that he sexually assaulted a woman and her college-aged daughter. The mother claimed he had grabbed her and rubbed his groin against her buttocks, the daughter that he had kissed and groped her without consent.

Defence lawyer Nathan Gorham suggested during the trial the pair concocted the allegations because of a dispute with the Melnichuks.

The Prayer Palace founder was found not guilty in an oral decision about three months ago, Gorham said Wednesday.

Paul Melnichuk made legal headlines of a different kind 35 years ago.

Jewish organizations called on authorities in 1982 to lay hate-crime charges after videotape emerged of a sermon in which he talked about “the old crooked Jew, as soon as he sees you he’s wondering how much money he can make on you, and how he can gyp you.”

No charges were laid and Melnichuk later apologized publicly, saying he was not “against anyone,” according to media reports at the time.

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